Dear PMS

What the hell? You again?
My Mirena IUD is clearly ceasing to spit out enough hormones because you're back. Last month about this time my tits felt like they were going to explode. I was so confused that I thought I was pregnant.
Since it's been 10 years since I had PMS I'd forgotten the hell that is you. Then brown gunk started collecting in my underwear. Oh yeah, periods. I forgot about that too. I don't even own tampons it's been so long. I was so slick on the birth control pills for the 5 years before I got knocked up that I hadn't had one of those since 1997.
Ok, it was wimpy, but it still sucked. At least my tits stopped hurting.
PMS, you are my sworn enemy. I remember the lost days when I was a teenager, in bed puking and bleeding through to the mattress, my pelvis in a vise. I remember that bathroom stall in Berlin when I got my first period in 9 months after weighing 95 pounds on the track team, thinking I was bleeding to death. My mother told me it was all in my head.
Funny. My head felt fine.
Even more unwelcome was the day when I was 19 when I puked at work, went home to bed on Motrin and Alice Cooper's "Only Women Bleed" came on the radio.
That was spooky.
Remember that stage when I had cramps on the start line and spent the first 20 miles strongly considering crossing the yellow line just to put myself out of my own misery? Then I bled through my chamois to my white Turbo saddle and still finished in the money? That was a real Uta Pippig moment.
PMS. You are mean. Period. You are gross.
As I type, PMS, my breasts are so engorged and sharp with pain I keep checking them to make sure there are not knitting needles sticking out of them.
I figured out after that BS last month in a couple days I'll get one of those wimpy old lady periods again.
This isn't funny anymore. Knock it off. I'm old.

alpha female sighting

I've fallen in with a social circle that calls themselves either "Patti's list" or "the nice girls." Patti started the list as an alternative to the mean girls. In one way or another all of us have at one time or another been a victim of the mean girls, and we just have no patience with it. It reminds me of trying to be friends with the Junior High cheerleaders, and going home crying every night. At some point you have to have some self-respect and realize they are the insecure losers, not you.
The mean girls are lead by a woman I referred to last year as "the alpha female." It's kind of funny because I think I said that once to the husband of her tennis partner, and it's taken off like wildfire, the husbands must have gossiped about it and tend to whisper it to me because they totally get what I'm talking about.
So last night I arrived late from work out to dinner with the tennis partner of the alpha female and her husband. I hate to say it but my dinner companions are in fact mean girls. I think they mean well, but sometimes they bulldoze. I tolerate them because our daughters are best friends. Alpha female sidles up to the table and starts chatting up my mean girl friend and her husband. Alpha female is completely invading my space, didn't acknowledge Curtis's or my presence and starts yacking on and on to my friends. I was so tired from my long day at work and now so irritated that it was all I could do not to walk out.
Unbelievable.
She may be able to crush my soul on the tennis court, and be incredibly rude, but I know in my heart that I can put her front wheel in the curb.

the tennis skort cameltoe

I'm not sure why women tolerate this.

I don't know if my ass is too big or too small, whatever, I'm just SICK of picking cameltoes and wedgies out of my bits and bobs.

I vastly prefer the 1970's granny panties with the little pockets.

I swear, I'm cutting all the compression shorts out of my tennis skirts and going Fancy Pants all the way.

I wouldn't want to be caught dead with them on for a date, but damn are they comfortable.

stealing pennies from homeless people

I'm one of those people who loves finding money in the street.

I love it so much that Curtis put pennies in the driveway just to make me happy.

I imagine some 400 pound mouth breather too obese to bother bending over for a penny.

It's a small victory, and I know I'm penny wise and pound foolish.

Last night I went in the room to evaluate an ER drunk I've known for 20 years. He's a big guy and depending on his mood he scares the shit out of me.

So I went in the room and he was completely passed out drunk, pretty much his usual pattern the first few hours he's in the ER.

On the floor right next to his stretcher was a nickel.

It could have been his nickel, maybe not, but now it's mine.

Is it okay to steal a nickel from a homeless person?

I'm taking suggestions: part deux

I played big girl tennis today-lost 3 sets but looked good trying in my baby doll tennis dress with the red granny panties.

Here's my problem. I need a country club matriarch nickname, like Pookie or Sugar. Today I played against a woman who goes by "Birdie." I'm not kidding.

So I'm open for suggestions on the country club nickname. It has to evoke idle time spent drinking gin and tonics courtside, an obsession with needlepoiint, and an obnoxiously rich husband.